The EU has announced an affordable housing plan aimed at encouraging long-term rentals and making housing more accessible for Europeans.Unveiled on Wednesday, the plan aims to create clarity and predictability in how rules are applied by local authorities, particularly in neighbourhoods popular with tourists where short-term rentals have displaced residents.”Lack of affordable housing is a matter of concern for so many of our European citizens,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a press statement. “Essential workers and students cannot afford to live where they serve and study. But most importantly, it is about fairness. Today, we are delivering for all Europeans.”While housing policy choices remain the preserve of national authorities, the new Commission plan aims to provide a common European framework of rules to guide implementation on the ground.”The new rules are designed to help competent authorities identify ‘areas under housing stress’ using a common methodology,” a Commission press release explains.”Where authorities choose to restrict the use of housing, for instance for short-term rentals or vacant dwellings, they must show that this contributes to local housing pressures and ensure that any measures are targeted, necessary and proportionate.”Housing in Europe is getting worseThe latest data on access to accommodation across Europe are worrying, and have pushed the Commission to intervene.Recent Eurobarometer data shows that 50 per cent of European city dwellers think that housing is an urgent problem they experience. House prices have skyrocketed faster than local incomes across most European capitals, rising 64.9% between 2015 and 2025 and rents 21.8%, according to EU data.Even people who cannot afford to buy are facing rising rents, which consume 40% of household income, and middle-class families are also increasingly facing a reality where they can’t afford to buy or rent, but also aren’t eligible for social housing.Many residents in cities like Lisbon, Barcelona and Prague complain that short-term rental platforms like Airbnb have removed homes from the market and pushed prices up, often forcing them to move.Short-term rentals represent only 1.2% of the EU’s total housing stock, but they can account for up to 20% in some tourism hotspots. With too few homes being built where demand is strongest, Brussels estimates it needs more than 2 million new homes every year to fix the problem.Airbnb, the largest worldwide platform for short-term rentals, has criticised the plan as not sufficiently clear.”Airbnb shares the Commission’s ambition to make housing more affordable. But as drafted, the Affordable Housing Act will not add a single home to the long term rental market, while adding regulatory uncertainty for hosts across European cities,” the company wrote in a press statement after the Commission’s announcement.The plan must now be negotiated by the EU co-legislators before being approved.Marta Pacheco contributed reporting.